Quote du Jour: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

from Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the Mukasey nomination (he was approved, of course, and his nomination sent up to the full Senate. I can understand why many in the committee voted for him, in the interest of the Justice Department and its dire straits, and in the interest of future precedent -- since not every nomination can be all-out war, and this nominee was recommended by anti-Gonzales bulldog Chuck Schumer, after all, who had second thoughts, post-hearing, before coming back around. However, I am also heartened to hear opinions like this one, and wish more in the committee had expressed them -- and backed them up with a vote.)

WHITEHOUSE: The reason that I voted against Judge Mukasey is that I feel that the discussion about torture that we have had has provided the opportunity for this country to have a moment of clarity about what should be a simple and clear proposition. And I'm afraid that by allowing this nomination to proceed, we will lose that moment of clarity.

I don't think we can look to this administration to provide that moral clarity to the world.

Unfortunately, it is my belief that when Vice President Cheney, for instance, gets on the television and tells the world that we do not torture, around the world, far too many people believe not only that we torture, but that we lie.

And so, Congress has the chance to provide that moment of moral clarity that I think is important.

No one, I doubt, feels the harm to the Department of Justice more than I do. I served as a United States attorney and the calling that that department represents is very, very, very important to me, to this country, to the values that we share.

So, I am very deeply torn to have voted against this nominee.

But I do see a nation under the Bush administration that is on a slow and sickening slide from the city on a hill that earlier presidents talked about.

We have compromised our values. We have disregarded our Constitution. We have degraded our standing in the world. And people died for this stuff.

So, in some respects, it is a sacrifice to the Department of Justice. And that pains me and grieves me.

But in pursuit of that moment of clarity that can be a signal to the rest of the world that the fires of our values still burn alive in American hearts, I have voted against this candidate.